Jon Gibs, Vice President, Media Analytics, The Nielsen Company
Sean Bruich, Measurement Research, Facebook, Inc.
We’ve heard from countless brand marketers about the need for guidance when it comes to measuring the value of social media advertising. It’s why we’ve made a major investment towards helping advertisers understand how to achieve their brand goals in a social context. Our joint report: Advertising Effectiveness: Understanding the Value of a Social Media Impression provides early insights from Nielsen’s BrandLift product which analyzed survey data from more than 800,000 Facebook users in response to more than 125 Facebook ad campaigns from 70 brand advertisers.
While the medium of social media advertising is still a wild frontier for some, the BrandLift framework solves a number of advertiser concerns by providing quantifiable data that can be mapped to trusted advertising effectiveness benchmarks already in place: Ad Recall, Brand Awareness, and Purchase Intent.
Suggesting You “Become A Fan” Of Social Engagement
Study after study has shown that consumers trust their friends and peers more than anyone else when it comes to making a purchase decision. It’s critical that we understand advertising not just in terms of “paid” media, but also in terms of how “earned” media (advertising that is passed along or shared among to friends and beyond) and social advocacy contribute to campaigns. To that end, we took a closer look at 14 Facebook ad campaigns that incorporated the “Become A Fan” engagement unit and sliced the effectiveness results three different ways, by each of the types of ads available on Facebook: 1) Lift from a standard “Homepage Ad”; 2) Lift from an ad that featured social context or “Homepage ads with Social Context”; and 3) Lift from “Organic Ads,” newsfeed stories that are sent to friends of users who engage with advertising on a brand.
For those Homepage ads at the top of the marketing funnel, awareness increased on average by 4% between exposed and control audiences. Purchase intent also increased on average by 2% following ad exposure on Facebook.
Comparing the responses of those users who had seen ads with social context against users who saw ads with no social context from the same campaign, we saw a measurable lift in lift.
While exposure to the homepage ad itself increased ad recall, those users exposed to both the “paid ad” and the organic impression remembered the ad at three times the rate of those just exposed to the paid homepage ad. We saw a similar effect for the other two metrics evaluated. Homepage ads increased awareness of the product or brand by 4% on average, but exposure to both homepage ads and organic ads increased awareness by a delta of 13% versus the control group. Exposure to organic impressions also impacted purchase intent as well, increasing the impact of the ad from 2% to 8%.
For more on earned media, social advertising and the methodology behind the study, download Advertising Effectiveness: Understanding the Value of a Social Media Impression.
We invite you to ask questions, leave comments below. We’re love to hear your thoughts.
This study is great! I think it speaks to the Facebook core; which is to connect people and brands in a meaningful way, so I see it this way: Connections/Fans = Earn media + brand= HTOM (High Top of Mind)
How was recall, awareness and purchase intent measured? Were interviews conducted? Was anything else measured beyond these three parameters? Are you looking to measure more provide broader research?
Facebook has just announced a change to their brand affinity programs. It's no longer going to be called "Become A Fan" but a new "Like" button along with possible changes in terms of service that lets Facebook track members' web usage. What's your take on this?
Finally – you use two terms to describe the same thing which I found a bit confusing at first. Homepage Ad = Engagement Ad.
Wonder if Social Media can really be stretched to such an extent, the consumers may not like it and most already avoid ads, care needed!
Agree with “E Michelson” that those measures are quite ambiguous. If we can find a method to measure purchase intention and consumer intention behavior, it would serve as a better measurememt gauge.
I have never really been influenced by the ads on facebook and have asked many of my FB friends if they have and I got the same answer. I these ads are ignored by a huge portion of social media users. We are so overloaded with ads we tune them out. It will take real people in our circles recommending products and services to move people to action to purchase. How long will businesses waste their money on these ineffective advertising models?
Recall and awareness are easier to measure than intent to purchase, as can be witnessed from the failure of many focus group studies seeking a predictive outcome. But, the three-fold improvements in recall and awareness are certainly noteworthy. What remains to be measured is negative brand perception connected to intrusive ads on social media platforms. That might be an interesting project for a Nielsen team.
Hazel,
I can relate to "ad blindness". I think it's somewhat selective though. People often behave differently than what they say. When asked what publications they read, it's almost impossible to get someone to "admit" to reading the National Inquirer. In front of a mic and camera they'll say Time or Newsweek.
We continually use testing and metric tools to see if the words/actions coincide. Real people moving people is true, but it's not always due to product use and experience. We saw how folks lined up to buy the first iPhones. There were no prior users (in anyone's circle) to recommend it.
In our social media campaign we used an ad that had our provincial flag in it (Newfoundland and Labrador) and advertised it in provinces where we new a lot of Newfoundlanders were residing… the click through rate was incredible. I think using something, like the flag in our case, to give you that hook is key.
I have never really been influenced by the ads on facebook and have asked many of my FB friends if they have and I got the same answer. I these ads are ignored by a huge portion of social media users. We are so overloaded with ads we tune them out. It will take real people in our circles recommending products and services to move people to action to purchase. How long will businesses waste their money on these ineffective advertising models?
+1
We have been working on Developing SMM products for the last three years and arrived at similar results. The Brand recall is highest when you have friends interacting with a brand. A positive interaction with a friends tends to influence users buy that particular brand or product.
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